As expected

 There is an oddity in all this. 

"it's time for it to come out" and I had been anticipating it. I can track the growth and knew it would be within the next couple of years, but I had hoped for a bit more time. 

But getting it out - something I wanted so much for the last one. I wanted to wait, I wanted to feel settled. I wanted to know I had a proper job. And I still don't know. I am now waiting to see the surgeon. 

Strange too, to cry about getting rid of cancer. After this, it will be gone. After this I start that clock again. Because  it doesn't end. 

How you give the news matters, I have given my usual optimistic slant. 

and so it comes

It was the night before clinic and all in the house, everyone was quiet, even the mouse. Or I'm being quiet. I'm quietly frightened. 

Today I was ok, busy but on the way home I began to feel the dread. The not totally irrational fear that tomorrow I could hear some bad news, even some very bad news.

My new colleagues got it. A card and some chocolates. Just to say they get it. That this is hard. I tried to play it down, like you do. But honestly, the simplicity of the new people in my life just saying. This is hard. Meant so so much

It must be hard, every six months. I thought, she gets this in a way some don't. I suspect she gets it because she's had to find out. I suspect she's had a clinic or a diagnosis - at our age lots of us do. 

So I'm having a glass of wine and I'm making dinner and I'll wrap myself up in my family tonight. 

Preparation

 6 days to go. 6 days to wait and 6 to be uncertain. Although as you know well by now, it is a short lived sense of certainty. 

The lack of stress of the last few years has meant that I dealt with it all so much better. I'm sure the sun helps too. I've been looking after myself in some important ways, I have cut down on my daily drinking massively and I sleep so much better for it. I have begun to take vitamin D supplements because I am not getting my daily dose of sun here. I'm trying to do weights a bit, I don't do a lot or often but I am doing some. I am thinking about how to get more fitness in. I eat well. I eat a varied and mostly vegetarian diet. I have never smoked. And despite this my body will do what it wants anyway. I'm aware these measures are, for me, much more about how to make my body recovery ready. 

The news about a young girl having a successful stem cell transplant and kidney transplant made me smile. Not that I suspect that would be me one day, but more that we - the human race - keeps finding ways to make life last and last well. 

I am expecting either, all stable let's scan in 6 months or, it's about time we thought about taking out those kidney tumours. I'm expecting a potential cerebellum tumour. I feel wobblier than I have before. I'm not expecting anything more than that. Ha - that's a VHLer - the good news of nothing is killing you right now. Come back in 2024 and we'll see how that year will be. 

I am trying not to feel the stress of not having a job and the fear of unpaid sick leave. Can I sign on when I'm off for surgery?

I'm letting myself enjoy the happy moments in life, singing in the kitchen with my girl, eating great food and treating myself to new shoes. I think tomorrow I'll do a bit in the garden. I will possibly buy more shoes. You can't have too many.